What It's Like to Drive Stupidly Fast and Expensive Cars for the First Time

The Waldorf Astoria hotel will let high-roller guests pay $999 to drive Ferraris, McLarens, and Lamborghinis around New York for a day. I am not a high-roller hotel guest. They let me try it out anyway.

I know the feeling of face-melting acceleration—on two wheels, at least—from years riding Ducati and Triumph motorcycles. But cars are different. There's the weight. There's the loud, large engines. Most importantly, there's the vast sheet metal that the manufacturer sculpts into an aerodynamic shape to hide the excess under the hood. So when I finally got my opportunity to get behind the wheel some of the coolest cars on the planet, I knew I was in for a surprise.

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The chance to drive the cars of boyhood dreams came from the Waldorf Astoria. As a guest of the fancy hotel, you can pay $999 for three hours behind the wheel of a supercar from their fleet. Well-heeled amateurs follow a convoy along a planned route, with stops at scenic locations for safe selfie-taking and bladder-vacating. You and other guests rotate between three cars: a McLaren MP4-12C, a Ferrari 458 Italia, and either a Lamborghini Gallardo, or a Porsche GT3.

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Two other journalists and I went to Monticello, CT (via Waldorf-provided helicopter), and got the guest experience, complete with a briefing from an ex-racer who led the convoy. Our fleet was slightly different: There was a Ferrari 458 Italia Spyder in rosso corsa, (aka Ferrari red), a white McLaren MP4-12C, and a Lamborghini Murciélago in a yellow paint visible from outer space.

I got used to kids rolling down their windows and dads making jokes about trading cars

Driving day

Before this, the most exuberant four-wheel driving I'd ever done was as a teenager. My parents left the house for a few hours and I took out my dad's 1990 Mazda Miata out on suburban streets, four months before I had my proper license (I know, Mom, quite stupid). Despite years of reviewing motorcycles, I rolled into this experience like a car fanboy who'd watched every episode of Top Gear with vicarious joy, hoping one day to enjoy a machine like this firsthand.

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Here's the good thing about modern supercars: Unlike the hot rides I grew up gawking at in the DuPont Registry, today's best cars are packed with technology that makes them approachable and well-behaved even to someone who's never driven anything faster than a Prius. You just need to know how to use a paddle-shift transmission. But that's not hard. The computers in these vehicles are so sophisticated that there's little to do besides downshift when you want to accelerate from speed and upshift when the engine whines and beckons. Some of these cars, like the Ferrari and McLaren, can even be set to fully automatic, no shifting required.

The only truly new sensation as you climb into these vehicles, then, is the deep bucket seat, the limited rear visibility, and the understanding of all the power you have at your disposal.

Getting the keys

First, the bright white McLaren MP4-12C. It's a clinical name and a clinical color, with the butterfly doors the only clear evidence that this is a special car. Until you start driving it, I mean.

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Of the three, the McLaren's interior felt the most like something that couldn't have existed before this moment. The LCD displays, the clean steering wheel, the minimalist knobs—this spread is a good indicator of its modernity, but the 3.8-liter V-8 barks from behind your head to remind you that it can still catapult you to ludicrous speeds.

On smooth pavement, the suspension is stiff, and when you hit potholes and gravel, it relaxes so it's smooth. The results that even as centrifugal force heaves you outward through a turn, the wheels stay in place like they're on train tracks and the car still feels like you're driving on glass. You notice this before you're even out of the parking lot, but it gets more clear when you punch the gas.

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My passenger was also new to riding in something this fast. Calling up the irresponsible adolescent I'd spent the last decade trying to quiet, I downshifted and slowed before a tight corner, added some gas and then, upon exiting, mashed the accelerator like I was trying to break the floorboard. You would, too. From the passenger seat, she reacted as I'd hoped, grabbing the door handle in futility, hitting a brake pedal she didn't have, then letting out an involuntary "Whoa!" The rush of these cars is about more than feeling your organs push back towards your spine while you accelerate. That panic—one that can only come from feeling yourself go way, way faster than you know is safe—is addictive.

It's more fun to just embrace the notion that this is your reality

Then the Ferrari, the apotheosis making beautiful, fast cars. Everything inside will see you swell with affection for the motor vehicle, especially as you rest your hands on the Formula One steering wheel, outfitted with obtusely labeled knobs and buttons and a red light bar across the top that illuminates lights as you rev the engine. Painted red, and with the top removed, the 458 is more showy than I like to be, but the setup lets you be hear the a precision V-8 making 570 horsepower inches from your head.

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The question of the day was which one we'd take home, and this is the one I'd take. Maybe my opinion was formed by hearing these ideas beforehand from Jeremy Clarkson and our pal Bob Sorokanich from Road & Track, but the 458 has a feeling of microchip factory precision, but with a dusting of id that tells you that the guys who made this thing like to have fun. I expect the new turbocharged 488 GTB is even better.

Last was the Murciélago. Frankly, the funniest thing about the Lambo was seeing a car this unattainable so clearly worn in. In the imagination, a Lamborghini is perpetually perfectly. In reality, the Murciélago used as a treat for wealthy hotel guests had buttons with the paint chipping off. The steering wheel was weathered. It even had an aftermarket stereo that'd look appropriate for a Fast & Furious background car.

Still, none of that detracted from what this car does better than anything else: draw attention.

As we got closer to New York City, and traffic increased, I got used to kids rolling down their windows and dads making jokes about trading cars. That's what happens when you're in a yellow Lamborghini that even Kanye West had to make into a song. (Even though the video uses a Gallardo. For shame, Kanye.) It's wider and longer than the other vehicles in the fleet, and the scissor doors are an announcement of the driver's arrival.

I am the Lamborghini driver

I was terrified to be seen in this thing, imaging that whoever sees a flashy yellow Lambo drive by automatically assumes the driver is a jackass.There are far less exhausting and less transparent methods to get attention. Who would choose this?

After about an hour of contemplation on that topic, though, I resigned myself to embrace that persona, which unlocked true enjoyment of this car. It's a disguise in sheetmetal—something that indicates, no matter how it happened, someone trusted you with this very expensive piece of machinery. When you see a Lamborghini go by, you want to know what circumstance led to that person driving this car. It's a vibe you can't ignore.

There are far less exhausting and less transparent methods to get attention. Who would choose this?

It is at this point that you being to understand the overwrought PR speak we heard about this program, or any service that loans you a supercar. On a public road, with pickup trucks and minivans coming in the oncoming lane, there's a normalcy that, I imagine, you don't get from being at a track. Going through turns, checking out the car next to you at the stop light—these are all familiar routines. But when you experience them from a vessel that's visually and aurally loud, a monument to modern engineering and irresponsible spending, you really do "see the world differently." How can you not experience your environment differently from inside of a million-dollar car?

Driving through Midtown Manhattan on a Saturday, streets lined with pedestrians, I chose to keep the windows down, inviting gawkers. At first you try to emote, somehow, that you're as surprised as they are that a lanky 28-year-old in sunglasses is driving this thing. It's more fun to just embrace the notion that this is your reality for this short time.

I remember having this much driverly fun only back when I was a kid, throwing the aforementioned Miata around suburban roads. Maybe time has made those memories fonder, but I think there's truth to the idea that it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than drive a fast car slow. The former feels like you're getting a more complete understanding of the thing you're commanding. Then again, driving a McLaren or a Ferrari or a Lamborghini isn't all about defeating physics and hugging the road through a turn. It's about the temporary costume a car like this provides.

If I had the $999 to pay for that experience, I'd be tempted too, if only for the Instagram shots. If you want to do the same, here's the timeline for the cars' availability. Leave your modesty at home.